Microsoft Patches 12 Office Security Holes

Microsoft today issued four updates to fix at least a dozen security vulnerabilities in its Office software products. All of the updates earned Microsoft's "critical" label, meaning attackers could exploit the flaws to break into Windows systems with little or no help from users.

Included in today's Patch Tuesday roundup are fixes for just about every Office suite or stand-alone product that Microsoft currently supports -- going back to Office 2000 and including Office for Mac software and various Office Viewer components.

One of the updates, which mends at least seven flaws in different Office titles, patches a security hole that hackers were exploiting as early as last week, according to reports from US-CERT and the SANS Internet Storm Center.

Interestingly, that patch and one other address security holes found in Office 2007, a product that underwent rigorous code review in an attempt to minimize the kinds of security weaknesses that were found to be pervasive in older versions of Office.

Office users can grab the latest patches from Microsoft Update. Office 2000 users, however, can only obtain them from Microsoft's Office Update. Office 2000 users may also need to have their Office installation CD handy in order to install these updates.